


just ask me to

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Series: all my favorite conversations [10]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Divergent, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, if i could fly au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5768470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He remembers the first time he’d seen it. Liam had held his left hand up to his face and said, “Look, it’s just where your cross tattoo is. Isn’t that mad?”</i>
</p><p>  <i>Harry’d thought it might have been a sign. If he believed in signs.</i></p><p>  <i>“Why’ve you got to have yours out where everyone can see, Payno?” Louis’d grumbled when Liam showed it off to them. “Like you’re bragging or something.”</i></p><p>  <i>“Liam wears his heart on his sleeve and his mark on his hand,” Harry had said softly, running his finger over the mark for the first time. The first of a thousand times. “You’ve got nothing to hide.”</i></p><p> <br/>[Or Harry doesn’t need a soulmate mark to tell him he’s in love with Liam.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	just ask me to

**Author's Note:**

  * For [veryniceandgood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/veryniceandgood/gifts).



> This is for Fina, who is not only undeniably kind and generous, but also has a knack for destroying me.
> 
> Half of this fic belongs to Bek, who plotted this with me so thoroughly she basically deserves a writing credit.
> 
> This is canon... _ish_ for obvious reasons.

 

\--

Twenty-one is an arbitrary number. He doesn't feel any different when he wakes up the morning of his twenty-first birthday than he does when he woke up yesterday morning for the last time as a twenty year old. There’s no switch flipped inside him that makes him feel like an adult -- nothing different to when he’d turned eighteen and could drink or twenty and wasn’t a teenager anymore. Doesn’t mean anything.

And yet.

He's kept his phone turned off, told everyone he'd want to hear from that he'd just like the day to himself until he’s got to keep up appearances at his party tonight. He's only got a few days left before he's back in the swing of things, before he's off to Australia.

He’s already had a few thousand pictures of marks sent to him yesterday alone, all number of people offering themselves up to be his soulmate. He’s sure his twitter is going mad with the countdown, Harry Styles Soulmate Watch 2015 slowly ticking down to the actual minute, since his mum made the mistake of tweeting out the actual time of his birth years back when none of them had much regard for privacy.

He spends most of his day living the glamorous life of a popstar on his sofa in his house, drinking smoothies and watching as many episodes of _Friends_ as he can manage in a single sitting. He bets he’d still have twenty articles written about him if anyone really knew what he was doing on his Soulmark Day.

They’d all celebrated their Soulmark Days in different ways. Zayn was asleep. Niall was three sheets to the wind and had forgotten to check for it until the following morning. Louis had been with his family. Liam’s had come in literally hours before they were meant to go onstage. Harry’s seen them all, displayed proudly like it was meant to be a badge of honor, like it wasn’t something everyone in the world got.

If it’s all the same to the universe, he’d rather not have one. He’s never heard of someone going without a mark -- he’s heard of plenty of people going their whole lives never finding their soulmate, but he’s never heard of someone without a mark. He’s seen marks destroy relationships as much as he’s seen them strengthen them. He’s seen people settle for others who aren’t their soulmates because they’d lost hope, he’s seen people try to make the best of it. He’s seen people force themselves into relationships they don’t want just because a mark on their skin told them to do so.

He supposes it normally works out for the best, but he wonders exactly how organic it all is. He wonders if people aren’t Stockholm syndrome’d in some way by their marks. If there are people who genuinely know their soulmate is who they truly belong with, or if they just believe that because their mark told them so.

Harry knows love, he’s lived with love clutching his heart firmly for years. He’s Harry Styles, he loves love, naturally -- that’s what they say about him. But he does know love, he knows how to give love and how to receive it. He’s never needed a mark to tell him how to do that. And he doesn’t want a mark to tell his soulmate to love him back.

He feels it suddenly, just at the exact moment of the anniversary of his birth. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t feel like his skin is burning, though he is technically being branded. It’s like a light tingling sensation around his left hip, almost like a small patch of his skin has fallen asleep.

Harry breathes out a sigh of relief that it’s in a place he’ll never have to share with the world. He slowly peels down his joggers and his pants to get a look at it where it rests under his laurels near the bend of his leg. He nearly snorts -- his soulmark resting on his laurels -- but his heart stops when he sees it. The familiar inkblot-like shape of it, the light brown color, the way part of it seems to curl into a spiral on the right side of it.

He knows exactly who it belongs to, he’s seen it daily for the last five months or so, if not in person than on the internet or in a magazine, on the walls of his house or the pictures in his phone.

Twenty-one is an arbitrary number. He's been in love for years now.

The mark’s not supposed to mean anything now. And it’s not supposed to mean anything eight days later either, when Liam’s crying and Harry doesn’t need to be told that Sophia’s soulmark came in and it doesn’t match Liam’s.

\---

Harry optimistically turns on the recorder on his phone and situates it in front of his crossed legs. He adjusts his guitar. And. He’s got. Nothing. He’s got nothing.

It’s been months since he’s written anything, though to be fair. Eventually they’re going to call him on it. He’ll have to stop pretending like he’s an Actual Musician because people are going to start noticing he’s not making any music. It can mean the end of a career when the muse has left you, only Harry’s muse hasn’t left him, necessarily, his muse is just... probably still nursing a twice-broken heart Harry didn’t give him.

He picks up his phone to switch the recorder off in frustration, maybe pouting a little, when it buzzes a text message in his hand.

_borrrrrrrred. bored bored bored_

It’s from a number Harry doesn’t recognize, doesn’t have saved on his phone. He squints at it, like maybe focusing a little harder on the text message will suddenly illuminate the mystery identity. It doesn’t.

Harry hums. _Only boring people are bored_ , he tells his wrong number.

 _lol,_ it responds.

Harry sets his guitar aside. He’s not going to say he was looking for a distraction, but he’s hard pressed to say no to one once he’s got it. _Are you a boring person?_

_reckon i am. youre not though shall i come out to yours early then? you could teach me_

Harry blinks. _Sorry, I don’t actually know who this is?_

_very funny styles_

The moments before the next text that pops up on his phone are heart wrenching, that some random’s found his number and he’s going to do god knows what with it. It’s technically easy enough getting a new phone number and all, but the rest of it’s a fucking hassle. And who knows what kids these days can do with just a phone number. There’s only so much Harry can keep from the cloud.

_wait shit its liam_

_i didn’t give you my new number did i_

Harry groans and taps at his phone until the line is ringing, and Liam picks up almost immediately.

“Sorry about that.”

“You change your number every thirteen hours,” Harry complains.

“That’s an exaggeration.” Liam sounds like he’s rolling his eyes.

“Only a slight one.”

“Gotta do something to keep you all guessing because what else is there?”

Harry feels offended at the suggestion. “You’re not boring, Liam Payne. You never have been.”

He leans back in his bed and doesn’t say what is sitting at the back of his mind. _How dare you text me when I’ve been thinking about how much I need you._

Liam laughs even though it’s not funny. “Hang on, do you answer every unknown number with inspirational quotes from Betty Draper?”

“Well, Liam, I’ve been a bit lonely lately.” Harry’s joking but it doesn’t exactly come out like one.

“So shall I come out to LA then?”

Harry misses him hard, sometimes so much it’s all he can feel and he’s paralyzed with it. It’s not meant to be this way, but he supposes love has always hurt more with Liam than it has with anyone else. He thought their tour break would be what he needs to cool the fire in his heart that Liam’s always stubbornly -- if not unwittingly -- fanning. But the weeks are slowly bleeding into months and though they haven’t found their way back to each other yet, Harry has yet to spend a day without thinking about Liam.

“Yeah, I’d love that.”

\--

He forgets exactly how _Liam_ Liam really is until he’s there, actively being Liam in Harry’s house.

Until he’s talking at Harry like not a second has passed since they last saw each other. Until he’s telling Harry about the three new friends he made on his flight over because he decided to go commercial. Until he’s singing in the shower as he’s washing off the day’s travel.

Until he’s apologizing for falling asleep at 6 pm because his body is confused about time zones on top of the fact that he’s already been awake for some twenty-three hours. Until he’s falling asleep in Harry’s bed -- even though all his stuff is in a guest room -- because he says Harry’s guest room sheets smell like hotels and he doesn’t want to sleep in a hotel.

Liam really makes himself at home wherever he goes, he makes it look enviably easy. Harry’s spent more than his fair share of time living in someone else’s home, but it’s never quite felt like a home.

Liam falls asleep on the right side of the bed because he knows Harry still sleeps on the left side even without someone else there. Or because the right side of the bed is closer to the door. Harry can’t just keep looking for reasons to be fond of him, it’s a slippery slope.

Harry slides in next to him a few hours later, forgoing curling up next to him like he wants to, sticks to his own side of the bed. He falls asleep quickly to the familiar sounds of Liam’s rhythmic breathing.

He wakes gradually to the sound of water falling and birds chirping -- Jeff’s bought him this ambient noises thing that’s supposed to be more of a calming way to awaken. He likes it, the sound of nature sort of reminds him of home in a way that the ambient noises of a city never could.

He goes to blindly reach for the alarm, but there’s a heavy arm draped over his waist, fingers barely resting on top of his mark like they know they belong there.

He doesn’t allow himself to soak it up, he’s sure Liam would be a bit mortified to wake up with his face tucked in Harry’s hair and his arm thrown dangerously low on his waist. He slides carefully out of bed, checking to make sure Liam stays asleep, grabs the yoga clothes he keeps on the desk in the corner, and changes in the bathroom.

Liam wakes just as he’s finishing his routine for the morning, finds Harry out on the back patio in the middle of a bridge pose. He’s got one of Harry’s spare yoga mats under his arm and a soft, sleepy smile on his face. Harry pats the ground next to him and Liam accepts the invitation. They move quietly together, Liam trailing a little behind as Harry runs through his morning routine for the second time. Liam’s not particularly wild about yoga, he’s just a participator. He likes doing what other people love with them.

Harry feels like a wet noodle after, flumps down onto his mat with an _oof_. He feels calm in a way he hasn’t for months and months, unsure all the extra yoga is entirely to blame.

“Can I ask how you’re doing?” Harry says, breaking the silence they’ve been in all morning.

He likes to give a way out, if they’re not ready. If something’s still too sensitive to discuss. Most people won’t take it, most people don’t seem to ever tell him no. Sometimes he can get Niall to say no when he’s not in the mood, and that’s a relief, as much as Harry always wants to know. He doesn’t ever want someone to give something away before they’re ready to, just because he’s asked them to. He always gives a way out.

Liam never takes it, he’s not that kind of guy. It’s part of why Harry loves him so much and part of why Harry worries about him so much. “Yeah. I’m fine. Honestly. About Soph, at least.”

“Yeah,” Harry says. He’d never directly ask any of them about Zayn, way out or no. It’s entirely too soon. “Coupla blows, right after the other.”

“Well, Soph and I, we’d been a bit prepared, I guess. We knew if they didn’t match we’d just call it a day. You sort of just… don’t plan that they don’t match. Shock’s a bit much but when the dust settles, you realize it’s for the best.”

Harry hums, surprised. “That’s very well-adjusted.”

“I know,” Liam says, quite proud. “Although Louis’ been asking if I’m gonna shave all me hair off again in mourning, but it just feels a bit tired. Can’t just relive my greatest hits, you know? They’ll say I’ve run out of ideas.”

“Who’s they?” Harry asks, though he already knows.

“Just like. The world, I reckon.”

Harry doesn’t give a shit about the world will say. Most days. He can’t afford to. On the days when the world is a kind and beautiful place, Harry has all the love to give back to it. It’s just on the days when the world isn’t, he can’t afford to worry about what the world thinks of him. He wishes he could do that for Liam. Liam worries so much.

“One of us is going to have to do something dramatic sooner or later. I should go for a buzz. S’hot enough. Think it’s time.”

“I will never forgive you.” Liam rests his hands over Harry’s head protectively, rolling over to him, getting in so close Harry starts to get nervous. “My worst nightmare. Every morning I get up and google _Harry Styles Haircut_ just to make sure you’ve not done it.”

Harry gives him a withering look through the gap between his arms. “No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t. But only because I’m sure twitter would let me know the second you get it done.”

Harry laughs and bats at his hands, but Liam holds firm, lacing his fingers in and disturbing the integrity of Harry’s bun.

“I’m serious. Hashtag RIP Harry’s Hair. I can see it now. They’ll find a way to blame me, of course.” His voice drops into this devastated croon. “At-Liam how could you let this happen, you’ve betrayed us all.”

“You’re absurd,” Harry says. But he loves it.

Liam finally relents, takes his hands from Harry’s hair, and falls onto his back. But he’s still pressed into Harry’s side.

“Would you fight them off for me?” Liam asks. “If they came for me?”

It’s never been Harry’s style, to get involved. He’s never stepped a toe in, not when any of them have gotten in trouble. He’s not been willing to put himself in a vulnerable position for years, and none of them have asked him to. Liam always jumps without asking, thunders straight into everything without taking a second thought to what the consequences would be.

If he did that, if he made himself vulnerable in Liam’s defense, he’d be showing his whole hand. There wouldn’t be anything left he could hide from Liam, from the world.

But if Liam asked him to fight, Harry would. All he’d have to do was ask.

“Yes, Liam. I would.”

\--

They’re not exactly incognito, hats or no, so they get stopped every twenty feet or so for a while as they inch their way down the pier to Pacific Park. Liam takes it in stride when some people only ask for Harry’s picture, but Harry pulls him back in every time anyway -- it’s not like they’re going to tell Harry no.

They take a detour to lean up against the railings and peer down at the sand below. He wonders if they should jump over the edge just to dig their toes in it, but he doesn’t imagine that’d go over too well with anyone but Liam.

“I can see why you like it here,” Liam says.

“Well, I don’t go to the Santa Monica Pier every day.” Or. At all. It’s a tourist trap and they’ll be trapped for sure, but Liam asked and he’d cancelled his summer trip to Orlando when he and Sophia broke it off and Harry is incapable of telling him no.

“I know, I know. I meant Los Angeles. It’s just. It’s nice.”

Harry doesn’t think anyone’s ever described any part of Los Angeles as nice. It’s great, for sure. It’s got everything you could ever want to do, you can be anyone you need to be or want to be. But nice? Wolverhampton’s _nice_.

It’s very much like Liam to see things through rose-colored glasses. Harry does like to see the best in things and the best in people, and if he ever forgets to, all he needs is Liam for a reminder.

“It is nice,” Harry allows. “With you.”

Liam beams.

“What would you like to do?”

Liam raises his eyebrows hopefully before he starts looking around at everything ahead of him. “All of it?”

“We will definitely cater to the American need to deep fry food on a stick,” Harry promises. “Only the best for you, Leemo.”

“I do like corn dogs,” Liam says gratefully.

He can see Liam’s eyes glance over the entrance to the roller coaster and keep moving, like he’s not going to bother asking Harry to go on. He knows Harry’s not wild about them, but it does look rather harmless. Harry would go on it if Liam asked him to.

Instead he turns to Harry seriously, puts his hands on his shoulders, and says, “Harry, we need to go on that ferris wheel.”

Harry looks back at their security and gets a thumbs up before he agrees and lets Liam pay for their tickets.

“Don’t puke in my hat,” Harry says, putting a protective hand up to the brim of it as they shuffle their way forward in line.

Liam looks offended, throwing a scandalized hand to his chest. “Harry Styles, I would never.”

“Archival evidence suggests otherwise.”

Liam chuckles and throws his arm around Harry’s waist, his fingers mere centimeters from Harry’s mark. Harry sighs into him a little, because if Liam’s offering, he’s going to take it, even if it doesn’t have to mean anything more. He desperately wishes it means more, but he can’t ask that of Liam. Not now, probably not ever, if he’s truly unlucky.  

But both of them are almost lucky right now, in some weird morbid way, that Zayn leaving made everyone ease off the Soulmate Watch and the Liam/Sophia break up. Harry's done pretty well flying under the radar, but it’s only a matter of time before it’s news again and the pressure creeps back onto him.

“So you haven’t been looking for your soulmate at all?” Liam asks, like he senses it. Harry feels a little tension at the question, but they’re rising slowly in the air -- crunched up together on one side even though they’re supposed to sit across from each other -- so no one will be able to hear them. No one will have to watch Harry attempt to lie to him.

“Nah,” Harry says. _I’ve already found you, and you don’t want me_ , he doesn’t say.

“You’re not a little curious?”

Harry shrugs. He's so casual. “If it happens, it happens, you know?”

“Oh, I can’t wait.” Liam drums his fingers against the edge of the cart, like he's impatient for it, like he wants it to happen _right now_. Jump off the ferris wheel and find his soulmate waiting for him at the bottom. “It’s just your other half, you know? I wonder what it feels like to be whole.”

Part of him is surprised that Liam could tell a difference, he was so gone for her, and he seems to have nothing else to compare it to. Liam loves with his whole heart, in a way that makes Harry breathless, envious. Maybe Harry does feel a little bit of it -- he’s tried to love other people besides Liam, he’s tried to give them his heart, he’s tried to let them complete him. But none of them made him feel like Liam does.

“You didn’t feel whole with Sophia?” Harry asks as calmly as he can manage.

Liam looks pensive for a moment. “I guess I didn’t. I feel whole when I’m with you.”

Harry’s heart skips a beat and he grips the side of the cart. He just wants Liam to say it on his own, to tell Harry he loves him just because he feels it, just because it occurred to him. But then Liam qualifies it, he always qualifies it.

“You know, you and the lads. Like we always said. Five way soulmates.” Liam’s face falls a little when he realizes, but he doesn't correct himself.

Harry presses closer, pretends like Liam isn't feeling whole in more than one way, and Liam wraps his arm around his shoulder like it’s instinct.

“But yeah,” he says roughly. “My mum, y’know, she says it’s like feeling complete. I want that.”

“I want that for you.”

“I’m sure you’ll feel that way, too, when you find yours.”

But Harry already does.

Liam doesn’t ask him what his mark looks like, he’s never asked him to show him. None of the lads have, either respecting his privacy or understanding how much pressure he’s under. The world’s seen all of their marks, one way or another, though nobody’s is as obviously placed as Liam.

Harry reaches up to lace his fingers through the hand Liam’s got around his shoulder, traces his thumb over Liam’s mark, carefully outlining its little curl.

He remembers the first time he’d seen it. Liam had held his left hand up to his face and said, “Look, it’s just where your cross tattoo is. Isn’t that mad?”

Harry’d thought it might have been a sign. If he believed in signs.

“Why’ve you got to have yours out where everyone can see, Payno?” Louis’d grumbled when Liam showed it off to them. “Like you’re bragging or something.”

“Liam wears his heart on his sleeve and his mark on his hand,” Harry had said softly, running his finger over the mark for the first time. The first of a thousand times. “You’ve got nothing to hide.”

Liam had smiled, warm and all encompassing. Kind of like he’s smiling now, looking out at the ocean, lit up with all the colors of the pier as it crashes into the shore. Like he's just able to let the stress and the disappointment melt off him when he wants to and just enjoy this moment. Harry enjoys it too.

“I like it up here,” Harry says. “Feels like I’m flying.”

“What if we could fly, that’d be sick.” He hangs his hand over into the air, letting the light spring breeze wash over him. He wiggles his fingers and runs his hand over the current like you do when the window’s down in a car. Harry figures Liam’s thinking about what it would be like to actually fly through the air, probably trying to think of some way he’ll actually be able to do it.

“If you could fly, where would you go?” Harry asks like it’s a kid’s game. Like they haven’t got millions of dollars between them, like something could ever stop them.

“Suppose I’d visit you more often. Wherever you were.” He doesn’t seem to spare a second thought for him.

Harry would always make a home for him, wherever he was. If Liam came, he’d make a home for him, even if Liam never belonged to him.

He wonders if he can really do that to Liam, keep this from him forever. He wonders if Liam would settle eventually, if he’d find someone he thought was good enough, or if he’d spend the rest of his life waiting for Harry. If Harry told him now, Liam would make the best of it, no matter what. He’d put a smile on his face and try to do right by Harry. Maybe he’d even kiss Harry, if he thought that’s what he was supposed to do.

Harry doesn’t want that for Liam, but he also doesn’t want that for himself. He doesn’t consider himself a consolation prize. He doesn’t want kisses from Liam if they’re light and obligatory. He wants kisses from Liam that destroy him from the inside out and put him back together again.

Knowing that doesn’t make Harry feel any less comforted. It doesn’t spur him to get their life started together.

Jet lag still takes Liam pretty early when they get back to Harry’s, so Harry hides out in his studio to work, to pour everything Liam’s given him in the last twenty-four hours into music. Or, more accurately, to pour everything he felt while Liam was away, suddenly thrown into sharp relief now that he’s here.

\--

Harry switches off the microphone with he hears Liam padding downstairs into the studio. He escapes the recording software and pulls up a YouTube video of someone talking over a three-chord progression Harry’s been having trouble with.

“Morning,” Liam says. He shuffles around the room, lightly tracing his hands over the instruments Harry has strewn across the room -- mostly for the benefit of other musicians, as Harry can’t play most of them. Yet.

“Morning.”

“Tommo and Niall are in today. Thought they could come over for dinner?”

“That sounds nice,” Harry says, even though he doesn’t want anything to pop the little bubble they’ve been living in since the night at the pier. The last few days have been quiet, have belonged just to them. It’s a little like the life Harry would wish for them.

“Maybe you could show us what you’ve been working on.” He throws a pointed look to the guitar in Harry’s lap.

There’s only been one song. It’s only Liam’s song that he has to offer, and showing it to Liam would tell far more than he thinks he’s willing to risk. “Dunno about that.”

Liam settles into the chair next to him, resting a hand to Harry’s knee. “Oh, come on, Harry, you know I’m your biggest fan. Love your stuff.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course, it’s the best,” Liam says, earnest as ever. “I’ve actually never seen you write anything on your own. It’s all a big mystery, how Mr. Styles’ creative juices get flowing.”

 _Mostly I just sit around and get sad about you_ isn’t exactly something he can tell Liam. “It’s not done yet, it’s out to Johan and Ross for some more work.”

Liam frowns and squeezes his hand around Harry’s knee. “If it’s a work in progress, you don’t have to. I get it.”

He wonders if Liam does, though. Liam’s collaborative as hell, open and eager to lay all of his thoughts and desires out there, ready to fight for them or to compromise at a better suggestion. Harry’s not like that, Harry likes to keep his stuff close until it’s as near perfect as it can get. He doesn’t want Liam to see his shit rough drafts, he doesn’t want Liam to see him at anything less than perfect.

But he still can’t say no, not now that Liam’s asking him to.

“No, it’s fine,” Harry says anyway, shifting his guitar in his lap and clearing his throat dramatically. He strums. “ _You’re insecure. Don’t know what for_.”

Liam shoves him, but he’s laughing. Harry’s chair goes spinning a little with the force of it until Liam tugs on the arm of it and Harry twists back into Liam’s line of sight.

It’s more of a piano song, he thinks, but he’s not too good at the piano yet. He could scratch out the chords and get Liam to play it for him, but Harry’s pretty sure he wouldn’t survive that, Harry singing as Liam plays this song Harry wrote for him, about him.

He does realize that if they decide to put it on the album, he’ll have to deal with seeing Liam sing it. He’ll have to live with the fact that he put words in Liam’s mouth that he wants Liam to mean. He does realize that.

“Okay,” Harry says when he can't put it off any further, and he starts the song.

Harry feels like he’s offering himself up to Liam, the more he sings to him. Harry tells him that he leaves half of himself behind for Liam every time he leaves. That he wouldn’t leave if he didn’t have to, that he’d stay if Liam wanted him to stay.  

 _Pay attention_ , he urges him, like he’s only going to say this once, like this is the only way he knows how to say it. There’s nothing Harry can’t say in his music, when songs are just songs, but this one isn’t just a song. He’s just banking on nobody realizing this one means something more, that no one’s going to realize how vulnerable Harry’s made himself, when Harry doesn’t allow himself to be vulnerable.

He hums over the lines he isn’t sure of, the ones the other lads are working on, but it’s pretty close to a complete song. It’s a song that’s meant to make them feel complete.

He lets the song hang in the air when he’s done, lets the last few notes flutter gently like a feather to the ground around them before he can stomach looking up at Liam for his criticism.

Liam looks like he’s in awe, which is enough to get Harry’s cheeks flushing. He’s dumbstruck, mouth hanging open a little, eyes wet. Harry’s going to crumple at the sight of it, he’s going to melt off his chair and never recover. He can’t believe he’s made Liam look like that.

“Shit, Harry,” Liam says quietly. “That’s. That’s a soulmate song.”

“Yeah?” Harry pretends he doesn’t know.

“Anyone would be lucky to have that written about them. It’s like. It’s like someone’s turned on the lights for the first time and you can see everything you’ve only ever heard about.”

Harry’s heart lurches because Liam makes him feel that way. Liam makes him see things he’s not able to see on his own, makes him feel things he’s afraid of but needs to feel.

“Well. You know me. _I love love_.” Harry turns away and sets his guitar back on its stand when it gets to be too much. When he can’t Liam digest what Harry’s written for him, not when he thinks Harry’s written it for anyone else.

“Yeah.” Liam almost sounds disappointed at that. He recovers quickly when Harry turns back to him. His eyes are clear and his smile is proud. “What’s it called then, _For Your Eyes Only_?”

“Maybe,” Harry says, but he already knows what it’s called.

\--

He loses track of Liam about half an hour after Louis arrives, which is par for the course. He and Niall are cooking in the kitchen and it gets too quiet for comfort. That generally means mischief.

But then he catches Liam and Louis moving very carefully through the hallway to the door with their arms full of shit Harry’s hardly aware he even owns -- a metal trashcan, a massive teddy bear, an ancient pair of garden shears, couple of shaggy throw pillows.

“What -- ” Harry starts.

Louis shushes him and mouths very slowly, _distract Niall_.

Harry squints at him. “No.”

Louis points at him then makes a slow throat-slicing move. A threat. He nearly knocks himself in the head with a rake doing it, so at least there’s some level of vindication in the world.

Harry narrows his eyes until Liam pleads silently, his face broken into something pathetic as he mouths, _please, Harry_. And all of Harry’s resolve and all of his loyalty melts from him, because Liam’s asked him to.

“Unfuckingbelievable,” Harry mutters, mostly at himself, as he turns around to go distract Niall in the kitchen. The bubble popped so quickly, and Harry tries not to feel a little bitter about it, but he doesn’t exactly try his hardest.

“All right there, petal?” Niall asks at the frown on his face.

Harry sighs dramatically and falls into a stool at the island, resting his head on his arms to watch Niall chop garlic.  Harry’s just here for moral support at this point -- Niall doesn’t like people interfering when he’s Jamie Olivering and Harry’s already made the dessert.

Niall pokes him in the forehead with a garlic juice-covered finger. “The sun is shining and you’re a millionaire. Maybe put a smile on your face.”

Harry puts a big ugly grin on his face, all teeth and gums until Niall nods with approval and Harry wipes the garlic off his forehead. He should know better than to pout at Niall, most especially about how his Liam time has been interrupted. There’s a division between them, more often than not, now that they’re four. Liam and Louis creeping off to do something, Niall and Harry left either to each other or to their own devices. Harry could tell himself he wouldn’t mind if they were a four-person unit, time equally divided, but the fact of the matter is he wants more than his fair share of Liam.

He’s selfish, now that he knows what it feels like, to keep Liam to himself.

“Cute date,” Niall says. He taps at the postcard of the ferris wheel Liam bought and stuck on the fridge with a magnet and pulls the door open to grab the steaks.

“Yeah?” It was a date, wasn’t it. He’s gotta be careful about that. He’s gotta measure his own expectations, because Liam doesn’t think of it as anything other than lads just being lads.

“It’s good, he’s getting out you out of the house.”

Harry frowns. “I get out of the house.”

“Coffee runs don’t count.”

Maybe he is a bit of a shut-in. Maybe it’s a bit destructive, not going anywhere when Liam’s not around, only living his best life when he’s got Liam beside him.

Niall knows he’s won, Harry can see it in the smirk on his face. “Where’s your next date?”

“I’m not dating Liam.”

“Why not?”

Harry blinks at him. “I’m not exactly his type.”

“Leggy brunette? You’re exactly his type.”

It’s all a joke to Niall, one of many jokes they’ve shared about dating each other. They do tend to latch onto each other one at a time, their Lad of Preference, in something of a rota spanning months or years. Harry’s done well enough that no one’s noticed his rota’s been stuck on Liam for at least three solid years.

“Hilarious,” Harry says. If he wanted to date Liam, he doesn’t actually imagine any of them would be okay with it. They’d reach another level in the band they hadn’t gotten before. Harry’d introduce a new way for them to break their hearts.

“I’m just saying.”

“I’ve also got a dick,” Harry says, which may or may not be one of the real cruxes of the issue. Liam’s only ever talked about girls. Harry doesn’t think about that, can’t afford to.

Niall gawks, his eyes wide and disbelieving. “Really?”

Harry nods seriously. “A pretty big one.”

Niall starts scooting around the island for him. “I don’t believe you, I’ve gotta see this for myself.”

“Niall -- ”

“C’mere, Harry, I miss it.”

That’s how Liam finds them, Niall curled over his back trying to get his hands at Harry’s flies, Harry bent over shouting obscenities at him. Liam stands stock still at the doorway to the kitchen with two loo rolls in his hands, and he’s watching them with a blank expression on his face, his eyes trained on Niall’s hands.

“What’re those for?” Niall asks, sliding off Harry’s back and laughing like it’s something they do all the time. Well. They do actually do this sort of thing all the time, and they’re all supposed to laugh it off. But Niall’s the only one laughing.

“Ehm. The loo?” Liam guesses. He’s blessedly terrible at lying to any of them.

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah.” Liam nods stiffly and leaves.

“That was fucking weird,” Niall notes and turns back to the steaks.

Harry nods dumbly and doesn’t see a wink of Liam until he calls them in for dinner. Niall’s car is a wreck. Harry doesn't even have words.

His phone lights up just as he's sitting down at the table. Liam’s posted three photos on Instagram in succession. Harry’s finger hovers over the _slide to unlock_.

“Family dinner, Harry, put your phone away,” Louis says, sharper than he normally does, as he settles down on the chair across from him. Another threat that he follows with wide eyes that flick to Niall placing plates on the table.

Harry slips his phone into his back pocket, garnering a wink and a small smile from Louis.

Liam enters from the bathroom, sizing up Harry and Louis at opposite sides of the table before sliding in next to Harry. He feels more than vindicated as Liam slides his hand across his back and asks him how he's doing.

He's doing much better now.

Dinner is slow and easy. Shop talk is almost always off limits when they're off work, so after they give updates on their family, they devolve into soulmate talk. Liam always gives that talk freely, whereas they'd have to pull that sort of thing from Harry like they're pulling teeth.

“Maybe I should sign up for one of them services,” Liam says, “Soulmatch.com? They could do all the heavy lifting for me.”

“That’s going to get out in half a second,” Louis says.

“Fine, then, I’ll hire someone to go through all of the tweets I get sent to actually make sure one of them _isn’t_ my soulmate.”

“Can't do that,” Niall says. “You know the rule. The three date mark. S’courtesy.”

Louis tsks. “Is there a point though? Getting a girl’s hopes up until you trade marks. Might as well just get it over with.” His voice stings with experience -- he and Eleanor had tried to make it work instead of breaking it off when her mark came in. It hadn't ended easily.

Liam leans back in his seat, thinking hard. “I mean, I’m not entirely sure how it happens, like, is there a moment? Do you just know? Or do you have to see someone’s soulmark? Should I be trading soulmarks with everyone I meet? What if their soulmark’s on their bum, I gotta look at bums until I find the one that matches? That seems a bit much.”

“I think you just know,” Niall says. Harry has to disagree, but he doesn’t. “We all knew. We knew on the X Factor.”

“Did we?” Louis says darkly. They hadn’t ended easily either.

Harry wants to say they did, but he doesn't know anymore.

Some of them have got screws on their leg, Louis’ got his Bus 1, Zayn’s done some of Harry’s tattoos, and Harry’s got pieces of the four of them all over himself. It’s the closest they’ve been to sharing soulmarks with each other, but they've only ever given it to themselves. They were meant to be permanent until they weren't.

The four of them sat at a table, just like this, and promised they’d be whole for each other. They’d expand to fill the pieces of themselves that Zayn took with him. They’re getting there.

\--

Eventually they migrate into Harry’s backyard, filling up his picnic table with empty bottle after empty bottle of beer until Liam is pressing heavily into Harry’s side and the conversation has dulled into light mumbling after everyone shouted and laughed over what Liam and Louis had done to Niall’s car.

Sometimes Harry likes to just sit and watch them go. Listen to the banter, smile at the jokes, frown through the arguments. Liam’s always circling back to Harry, pulling him into the conversation when he’s been quiet for too long. Like Niall had said, Liam’s making him do things, Liam makes him want to participate.

Liam leans over and says just for the two of them, “You gonna show them your song?”

Harry hums, an obvious no. “I dunno,” he says anyway.

Liam gives his hip an encouraging squeeze, his hand apparently making its permanent home resting just above Harry’s mark. Harry puts his hand to Liam’s and tangles their fingers together, his thumb resting just next to Liam’s mark. He struggles to remember -- did Liam always hold him this way? Did the mark grow there because of it?

“Go on, they’ll love it.” Liam crinkles a smile up at him.

That would make the song something that no longer belongs to the two of them, showing it to the lads. Well, also technically, Harry and Liam aren’t the only people who’ve heard it, but the others are removed from this. He’d have to sing it in front of the lads with Liam _right there_.

Now or never, really, because he suspects they’re all probably too drunk to recognize the truth when it’s sung. Harry agrees and the next thing he knows, he’s fiddling with a guitar and his sheet music. The others wait, patiently yet expectantly, and Harry feels jitters he doesn’t normally feel when he shows them a song. He’s usually too proud of what he’s done -- he’s damn proud of this one, but. It’s different.

Liam falls in with a harmony once, so suddenly and so beautifully, Harry nearly stops singing the song. He picks up where he faltered off and soldiers through the rest of the song. It’s just like Liam to have either memorized enough of the song that he can just fall in easily or to know Harry well enough that he’ll always find a way to fit with him.

At the end of it, Liam presses a light kiss to Harry’s shoulder and says, “Thank you,” like he knows what Harry’s done. Like it’s more than just Harry doing what Liam’s asked him to.

Niall’s smiling and nodding with his eyes closed, no doubt going back over the song in his head. Louis, he can’t read Louis at all.

Harry panics for a moment, that this is the moment he’s going to be called out and he’s going to have to account of all of his sins against Liam, until Louis asks quietly, “Teach it to us?’

He does, and listening to Liam say his words over and over is just as destructive as he thought it’d be.

They’re all a bit drunk and in no way warmed up, but they’re finding harmonies that are good enough and once Harry surrenders his guitar to Niall, it sounds like a song. Harry shares pieces of his heart with the three of them and they guard it carefully, taking each line and each verse gently into their voices to tell the best version of the story.

Harry’s nearly crying at the end of it.

Liam’s the one who ends up thanking them, his eyes shining nearly as bright as his smile does. The music settles heavily around them, and Harry knows they feel it. They’ve just been part of something bigger than themselves, bigger than they can understand.

The night is done.

“Should get going,” Niall says around a yawn.

Harry waves his hand. “Stay. You know I’ve got two guest rooms.”

“Where’s Liam going to sleep, the couch?”

“I’ve been staying in Harry’s, actually,” Liam says, more casual than Harry would ever manage. He smiles at Harry, thumping his shoulder with his left hand like he’s teasing him.

Niall’s head snaps up, looking straight at Harry with a look darker than Harry anticipates. He’s sure Niall doesn’t think their talk in the kitchen is too hypothetical anymore, not after the song, not after Liam’s admission. He’s sure Niall knows he was lying.

He doesn’t call Harry on it, because he’s not that kind of person.

He puts Liam to bed, beer-warm and a sleepy sort of happy. Liam stumbles out of his jeans and his shirt. Harry tries to lay him down on the left side of the bed, away from the door and the light pouring in from the hallway so he’s not disturbed as he drifts off.

“S’not my side of the bed.” Liam rolls over until he’s on his own side and scooting under the duvet. “Louis said we should do yours too, the convertible, but I told him not to.”

“Oh, cheers,” Harry says, deadpan, like he didn’t help Niall clean all the shit off his car once he got caught out for keeping Niall distracted. He tugs the duvet up over Liam’s head, which gets him giggling.

Liam escapes, popping back out before he puts both hands around Harry’s face and tugs him in close to smack a big kiss on his forehead. “Love you, Harry,” he says, patting at Harry’s face on both sides before he frames them around his face.

“Love you too,” Harry says. He’s expecting Liam to let his face go, but he doesn’t. He holds Harry close and watches him like he’s looking for something. _Ask me what you want to know_ , Harry wants to tell him. _I’d give it all._

Liam doesn’t ask him, eventually retreats his hands under the duvet, and drifts to sleep. Harry feels the loss of Liam’s hands snap one of his heartstrings. He wonders if it’s going to get easier to keep doing this, or if it’s going to get so hard he’s going to go out of his mind.

Harry shuffles back outside to clean up the mess they’d left on the picnic table, scooping up four bottles by the neck into his right hand. He can still feel the press of Liam’s lips against his forehead like a blessing. Liam’s like a blessing.

Louis announces his presence abruptly with, “What are you doing?”

Harry jumps, a hand clutching at his chest, the other one nearly dropping all the bottles in his hand. “Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me.”

He’s sitting in a chair just out of reach of the light spilling out into the backyard and he’s smoking a cigarette. He looks like he was just waiting for Harry, the fucker.

Louis takes a drag of his cigarette and repeats, “What are you doing?”

“The empties?” Harry waves his hand obviously.

“With Liam.”

Harry had expected it from Niall, but not from Louis. Louis’ got a possessive streak a mile wide, Harry knows well enough from his own personal experience, but it’s how he attempts to show he cares about someone. Harry was probably always going to deal with the eventuality of Louis rising up to Liam’s defense. It’s just, Harry hasn’t done anything wrong yet.

“Nothing, we’re just hanging out.”

Louis raises his eyebrows, but something about it feels condescending. “You guys can't keep your bloody hands off each other.”

It’s not untrue. Liam’s always rubbing at his back, clutching at his arm, wrapping an arm around his waist or his shoulders. That’s just Liam. Just because it means something to Harry doesn’t mean it’s anything more to Liam. That’s just Liam.

Harry deflects like the best of them. “What, are you pissed because he sat next to me and not you?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Fuck off.”

“It's not any different than it is with you and Niall.”

“Yes, it is. Harry. It is.”

“It’s nothing, we’re just hanging out,” he repeats firmly.

“That’s a lie.” Louis rises to approach him, stuffs the butt of his cigarette into a bottle, watches it fizzle and get soggy. “I know you a lot fucking better than you think, Harry. It's both a blessing and a curse.”

“Louis -- ” Harry starts, but Louis interrupts him quickly.

“Tell me that song’s not about him. Just tell me that.” He doesn’t sound angry at that, he sounds like he’s pleading.

Harry hesitates, pulling at his lips. The hesitation is enough for Louis’ face to crumple before he can even confirm, “I can’t.”

“Christ, Harry.” He thunks down onto the bench and scrubs at his face. “He doesn't want to date anyone who wasn't his soulmate.”

“I know that.” He wants to tell him _it's me, I am his soulmate._ He doesn't think it'd make a lick of difference to Louis. They both know it wouldn't be real, not if Liam didn’t feel it too.

“Then what the fuck are you doing writing a song like that? What are you doing making him _sing it_?”

“I don't know,” Harry admits. This whole week’s been an exercise in frustration, in Harry realizing he can’t always get what he wants -- or even, really, what he needs -- while what he wants shares his bed and kisses his forehead and laughs with him and loves him in a way that should be good enough. It’s meant to be enough, because Liam is _so much_.

“It’s not -- this isn’t new, I’ve been dealing with it, and I’ll keep dealing with it.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes.” Forever.

“You can’t, _Harry_ ,” Louis says, going a bit wide-eyed. “It’s not just Liam, mate, I don’t want you sitting out on finding your soulmate because you’re holding out for Liam. It’s not good for you. He deserves better than that, than to be one those relationships you just throw yourself into because you think the rules don’t apply to you. And you deserve better than that for yourself.”

Louis’ always been particularly talented at the backhanded show of support and Harry feels the sting of it across his cheek. He's never thought of Liam that way, he's never lumped him in with his long list of doomed relationships, as he's sure Louis would call them.

They were only doomed because they weren’t Liam. They were only doomed because Harry though he could deny what he knew to be true about himself, that he could figure something out with someone else he loved and that would be enough.

Louis looks at him, stern like he gets when he means business, and says, “We gotta protect ourselves, we’ve gotta protect what’s left of us.”

“I will.” He’s only got Liam’s best interests at heart, he believes that. “Liam's different. But it’s really. It’s nothing. I love him too much to hurt him. I wouldn't.”

Louis tilts his head in consideration before he seems to accept that. “Or hurt yourself.”

“Yeah, I won't,” Harry says, but that feels like a lie.

He rises and rests a hand to Harry’s shoulder. “It is a beautiful song, Harry.”

Harry nods. Liam’s a beautiful subject, he deserves a song that tries to touch that.

He cleans up the trash in Louis’ absence and considers sleeping on the sofa. Now that he's been called on it, it feels dishonest to sleep next to him. When it means something to Harry that it doesn't to Liam. Harry just wishes he would stop making it mean something.

“Finally,” Liam mumbles as soon as Harry slides into his side of the bed. “Been waiting for ages.”

“Thought you were asleep.”

“Toes are cold, need my heater.” That should have somehow acted like a warning for Harry, but he’s still taken completely by surprise when Liam shoves his feet up against Harry’s legs, Liam’s ice cube toes digging into Harry’s ankles.

Harry yelps an undignified noise, but he doesn’t push Liam away. “That all I’m good for?”

Liam hums a sleepy, noncommittal noise. “Just need you.”

\--

He wakes up in a funk, feeling sort of disgusted at himself that he’s wrapped himself up in Liam in the night, like he’s forcing a level of intimacy they’d never achieve awake. The funk hangs over the day, coloring everything they do together, from brunch to the farmer’s market to their late night takeaway taco dinner out at Harry’s favorite lookout.

They’ve been sitting in silence, stretched out on the hood of Harry’s car for the better part of half an hour with the best and unobscured view of Los Angeles sprawling before them.

It does look nice, from up here. It looks pretty peaceful, when you’re not looking too hard at it. Los Angeles looks innocuous from here, about as deceptively innocuous as Harry looks. Nobody would look at Harry and think he’s dangerous, that he’s capable of breaking Liam’s heart. Harry’s sure they look at him and think he’s _nice_.

“You’ve been a bit quiet today,” Liam says.

“Sorry. Just. Thinking a lot. Forget to say things sometimes.”

“You could say them now.”

Harry looks over at him. He looks so open and receptive, and Harry’s going to break his damn heart. Because he’s been thinking all day he can’t keep living this life. Louis’ right. They have to take care of themselves.

“What would you do if you never found your soulmate?”

Liam looks baffled, like the very thought of it is so inconceivable he doesn’t even understand why Harry would ask such a thing. “What do you mean?”

“Like you never find them. What if they, like, died yesterday or they live on top of a mountain in Iceland? What if you never find them?”

“I. I dunno? I thought I’d just find them? I didn’t really plan not to.” He looks down at his mark, tracing its outline the way Harry likes to.

“You wouldn’t try to marry someone else?”

“I dunno.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad not to end up with your soulmate,” Harry insists, trying to assure Liam as much as he’s trying to assure himself.

“You think?”

“I think if you just found someone you love, like, you could be happy.”

Liam’s voice goes a bit quiet. “You know what happens when people settle.”

Harry does. His parents settled. It hadn’t really been a dirty divorce, but it had still hurt. But there were still millions of unmatched people who settled and never divorced, who just never found their soulmates. It’s impossible to think they lived and died unfulfilled. There has to be something more than this.

“What if you just spend your whole life waiting for your soulmate and you don’t love anyone else? You meet plenty of people who you could spend the rest of your life loving and you just chuck them because your marks don’t match.”

“Harry.”

The more Harry needles him, the more it weighs on him. He can hear how he sounds, how he’s jabbing at Liam and Liam’s trying to take it in stride. He looks a bit pained now, but Harry can’t stop himself, not while he’s on a roll.

“You should just fall in love. You shouldn’t have a soulmark tell you who you’re in love with, it should just happen.”

“Harry, please.” Liam sounds desperate, like the pain has gotten to be too much and he can’t bare it.

“I’m sorry,” Harry mumbles. It’s a pathetic apology.

“ _I’m_ sorry. I’m just.” Liam presses his hands to his eyes. “Confused. Lately. I just don’t know what to think anymore.”

Harry doesn’t know how to unpack that, so he doesn’t. Not to Liam. He’s sure Liam’s still a bit hung up about his breakup, especially considering how much they’ve talked about soulmates over the last few days. Every time Liam seems pretty eager to find his soulmate, Harry hates himself a little more for being it.

Liam reaches into his bag and pulls out a Red Bull, popping it and stuffing it between his legs to hold it still as he dives back into his bag.

“God, you’ll never sleep if you drink one of those.”

Liam shrugs. “More time with you, then.”

Harry doesn’t preen like he should.

“Where’s my second taco?”

“Mm, might be in my bag.”

Liam sighs, long-suffering, with a face to match it. Harry nearly grins at him until he starts reaching clear across him for the bag where it sits to his left.

“I’ll get it -- Liam -- ” Harry starts, but it’s too late. Liam’s hand slips on the hood and he empties about three-quarters his Red Bull directly into Harry’s lap. Harry can feel it all the way down to his legs, _goddammit_ , it’s going to stick and dry stiff.

“Ah, fuck,” Liam says like that’s a proper apology, but he’s laughing. He pulls a napkin from his bag to start wiping at his jeans.

“You little -- ” Harry grumbles at him, cut off at a rather insistent press at his groin to sop up the little puddle collected there.

“Liam.” He squirms and tries to regulate his breathing as his face flushes and he starts to get hard enough Liam’s going to notice. _Shit_. A week of sexual repression while constantly pressed against someone like Liam was always going to come back and bite him in the arse.

“Almost got it, mate, I promise. Good as new.” He redoubles his efforts like he’s trying to prove a points and Harry nearly bites through his lip trying not to react.

Harry grabs hold of Liam’s wrist and lifts it off him. “Liam, _stop_.”

Liam looks up at him, his mouth open a little once he realizes, so Harry jams his eyes shut. He doesn’t want to see Liam’s cheeks get as pink as his own must be. God, this is humiliating.

“Sorry.”

Liam swallows audibly. “Don’t be.”

A wall of tension goes up between them, stronger and thicker than anything that’s been sitting between them all day. Liam’s smacked Harry’s dick every way possible more than once, he’s not a stranger to Liam’s hand lingering down there. But now. Now Harry’s threatening to ruin everything with one ill-timed boner. The idea is just so goddamn laughable.

The moment breaks when Harry snorts and covers his face with his hands, leaning backward onto the windshield. “Oh my god.”

“I’m honestly flattered.” Liam sounds so damn smug.

“Please shut up.”

He chuckles. “Has it been a while?”

“You’re walking home.”

It has been a while, but Harry’s not a _monster_. He can get a hold of himself if any other person on the planet had done the same thing. It’s just. It’s Liam.

Harry risks peeking one eye open at him. He’s sure Liam’s looking right at him, his face is certainly pointed that way, but his smile has crinkled his eyes so thoroughly that they look closed. Liam leans back onto the windshield beside him, his smile softening enough that Harry can see Los Angeles twinkling away in them.

If Liam asked him to kiss him, he would.

\--

Liam heads into the kitchen to grab drinks for their pending _Mad Men_ marathon, Harry heading the opposite direction to change out of his Red Bull-infused jeans. The boner’d faded pretty quickly once Liam started laughing at him, and that’s a small mercy.

Harry peels himself out of his jeans and pants in one go, shuffling to put them in the laundry basket by the door.

“Red or white, Haz?”

Harry startles, throwing his right hand down to cover himself. “Jesus, Liam, you could _knock_.”

“Please, nothing I haven’t seen…” Liam throws a big obvious look to Harry’s dick, but his voice trails off when he realizes there _is_ something he’s not seen before, and Harry realizes he’s gone to cover the wrong thing.

Harry turns -- _fuck_ , he’d been so careful, he’d stopped even going around in his pants for fear of someone catching a glimpse at his mark -- but Liam’s got a hand on his shoulder and turns him back. There’s not much use in hiding it from him now.

Liam kneels so he’s eye-level with the mark, and he holds his hand up next to it for a comparison. Liam’s gotta be more familiar with his own mark than Harry is, there’s no mistaking it. In any other situation, Liam’s face so close to him would be far more exciting, but there’s nothing but tension between the two of them.

Liam presses his thumb lightly against the mark, and it feels like Harry gets an electric shock, catching his breath in his chest and springing tears to his eyes. Liam’s mouth drops open like he’s had the breath shocked out of him too. Harry wishes Liam would look up at him, but he doesn’t think he’s allowed to ask.

He turns away, rising out of his crouch to stride out of the room. Harry’s worried he’s gone, but he doesn’t hear the front door close as he’s pulling on his sleep pants and throwing a t-shirt on.

Liam’s sitting on the couch, leaned over so his elbows are resting on his knees. His face is worked into something tortured. Every inch of him seems to be wrecked, but his voice is low and scarily calm when he says, “Explain.”

“Liam.” He’s helpless. He doesn’t have anything to add. It only makes Liam more frustrated.

“You kept this from me. After you _knew_ , you knew how I felt about -- ”

“It wasn’t like that, Liam, I swear. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with it.”

Liam frowns up at him for the first time and it hits Harry harder than he expects it to. It’s something more than torture. Betrayal. “But you didn't show me. I always thought that was weird, I always thought maybe you didn’t trust me.”

“Of course I trust you,” Harry insists. More than fucking anyone in the world. It was never a matter of not trusting Liam with his heart and with his mark.

“Even if it wasn't mine, would you have shown me?”

Harry moves to sit next to him, grabs his hands so Liam has to shift toward him. “I would have, if you asked me to. Even though it was yours. I couldn’t tell you no.”

He follows Liam’s eyes down to where their hands lay tangled between them, Harry’s own framing Liam’s soulmark, but hesitant to touch it.

“I shouldn't have to _ask_ ,” Liam says, his voice growing heated in a way Harry’s not heard from him in years. The voice of someone angry, frustrated, like he’d get on the X Factor when things were a bit shit and Liam was taking it harder than all of them. “You should just give me parts of you because you want to, not because I ask you to.”

“I want to. I want to do that, Liam, please, but it’s not that easy.”

“Were you winding me up in the car? All that talk about settling, like, were you trying to talk yourself out of this? That you didn’t want to be with me?”

Harry squeezes his hands. “No, Liam. Fuck. It’s because you don’t want to be with _me_.”

Liam looks incredulous. “What? You’re my soulmate.”

“I fell in love with you without needing a soulmark,” Harry says, his voice dropping with the weight of his fundamental truth being spoken out loud for the first time. “I just knew, have done for years. And if you didn’t know, then I didn’t want to push that on you.”

He shifts back to anger, but something in it increases two-fold. “What the actual _fuck_ , Harry? Were you just going to go your whole life without me then?”

Harry keeps studying their hands. It’s safe, far safer than his face, and maybe that’s the coward’s way out, but it’s the only way he can do it. “I wasn’t without you. I had you in the band, that was. That was enough.”

Liam pulls his hands from Harry’s roughly, and Harry’s afraid he’s really done it now. He’d crossed a line and Liam wasn’t coming back. But he lets doubt and worry get the best of him, because Liam’s not like that. He slides his hands around Harry’s face until he’s tilting it up to look at him.

“I don’t need you to be noble, for god’s sake,” Liam says, his tone as desperate as his eyes. “Harry, _you deserve a soulmate_.”

Harry feels nearly knocked over by that, saved by Liam holding him firm. If he really thinks about it, there is something to that -- how much of his refusal to tell Liam was built on the belief that he didn’t deserve Liam.

“You don’t need to be a bloody martyr about it, okay? I mean, I feel like I’m pretty reasonable. As a person?”

Harry shakes his head furiously, dislodging Liam’s hands. His brows starting to furrow just at the thought. “I didn’t want you to be reasonable. That would have been the worst thing.”

“Why?”

“Because then you’d feel obligated to be with me, like. You’d be giving up on falling in love with someone organically because you’d think you’re saddled with me because some mark on your hand told you so.”

“I don’t feel saddled with you. Maybe I didn’t always know. Maybe it took me a while to figure out what I was feeling, but I did.”

“You’ve never wanted me before, Liam. I didn’t think -- ”

“Love doesn’t have to just _happen_ , it can _grow_. You have to give me the chance to keep growing.”

Harry blinks up at him. “Keep growing?”

“I thought it might have been you. I thought I was driving myself crazy because like. Surely you'd show me your soulmark. You know. Just thinking, like. _If we belonged to each other, Harry would tell me._ But you didn't.”

That’s too much. It’s so close to what he wants, to everything he’s ever wanted coming out of Liam’s lips and burrowing deep into his soul. “I’m sorry. You understand, I didn’t want to trap you in something you didn’t really want. You understand?”

“I do understand. You just don’t get to make that decision for me.” He studies Harry as he usually does, like he’s mining for answers. If he’d ask, Harry would give everything. “I won't run from you. Is that what you're afraid of?”

Except that, he didn’t quite expect that. “Liam, please.”

“You wrote that song for me, didn't you?”

Harry winces. He’s just as transparent as he thought. “Yes.”

“I’m paying attention, Harry. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“I want you to see me. I want you to see us. Not just because our marks match.”

“It’s meant to be confirmation. That’s all. Doesn’t have to mean anything more than you’re right for loving me, and I’m right for loving you back.”

He’s breathless with it, with _loving you back_ , so in awe of him. He rests a hand on Liam’s chest like it could belong to him. “I never. I never imagined.”

Liam tsks and narrows his eyes. “Find that hard to believe. The Harry Styles I know has dreams so big he went out and took over the world.”

“None of that matters, not compared to this,” Harry says rashly, and it shows in Liam’s quirked eyebrows. “All right, all of that matters, but this matters the most.”

It’s good that Liam feels this way now, that Liam’s found his way to love Harry, but Harry can’t admit that he wasn’t entirely in the wrong. He wanted Liam to maintain his own autonomy and he did. At least he says he did. Liam’s right about the soulmark -- it’s confirmation. And Harry’s never doubted it was wrong.

Harry watches him closely, leaning forward to be near Liam on instinct. He could devour him, own every inch of him, body and soul, and he thinks Liam would let him.

“What are you waiting for, an invitation?” Liam prompts.

“Sort of, yeah.”

Liam rolls his eyes, but there’s something fond about it. “Harry Styles, would you please kiss me right now?”

Harry nods, sliding a hand to the back of his neck and guiding them together. He presses his lips to Liam’s lightly, tentatively, like Liam might spook at any moment. Even the slightest touch sends Harry reeling, his mind clouding like not a damn thing in the world means anything but the press of Liam against him. Harry thinks just this could be enough, but he’s lying to himself.

Liam opens up to him like he can feel Harry needs it, or maybe because he needs it to. It's like they introduce a new level of connection between them, like he can feel the warmth of Liam’s soul flowing through his veins. He feels like a different person now that Liam is his. He feels whole.

“Oh my god,” Liam whispers. “Harry.”

“I feel it.” He’ll spend the rest of his life trying to put it into words, but he doubts he’ll ever come close.

Liam’s his, Liam belongs to him and he to Liam. Liam makes it look so easy, loving Harry. He’s effortless with it the way Liam’s effortless with the things he loves. Harry still feels a pull to mourn his future without Liam, to try to comprehend how he could have denied himself fulfillment.

Liam’s holding him so tightly he can’t turn away to hide how his eyes start to tear up, he can’t furtively swipe at them. He doesn’t even know why he’s crying -- he’s altogether happy and relieved and exhausted terrified.

“Hey,” Liam says gently. “Come on, none of that.”

Harry leans forward to rest his head against Liam’s, fighting the urge to do a big sniffle and trying to keep his voice from shaking. “I’ve loved you so much I’ve broken my own heart.”

“Love you too, yeah?” Liam says, thumbing at Harry’s cheeks to wipe the tears away. “I’m gonna fix it.”

Harry nods and kisses him again and they feel complete.

\----

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! 
> 
> If you need me, I'm [here](http://wickershire.tumblr.com/post/137696494263/title-just-ask-me-to-rating-general).


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